composed from six to nine hundred years ago, and containing a mass of
legends, histories and romances finely told in a noble language. These
translations were followed in 1876 by his great epic poem, "Sigurd the
Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs." In that poem he retold a story
of which an Icelandic version, the "Volsunga Saga," written in the
twelfth century, is one of the world's masterpieces. It is the great
epic of Northern Europe, just as the "Iliad" and "Odyssey" of Homer
are the chief epics of ancient Greece, and the "Æneid" of Virgil the
chief epic of the Roman Empire. Morris's love for these great stories
of ancient times led him to rewrite the tale of the Volsungs and
Niblungs, which he reckoned the finest of them all, more fully and on
a larger scale than it had ever been written before. He had already,
in 1875, translated the "Æneid" into verse, and some ten years later,
in 1886-87, he also made a verse translation of the "Odyssey." In 1873
he had also written another very beautiful poem, "Love is Enough,"
containing the story of three pairs of lovers, a countryman and
country-woman, an emperor and empress, and a prince and peasant girl.
This poem was written in the form of a play, not of a narrative.

To write prose was at first for Morris more difficult than to write
poetry. Verse came naturally to him, and he composed in prose only
with much effort until after long practice. Except for his early tales
in the Oxford and Cambridge Magazine and his translations of Icelandic
sagas, he wrote little but poetry until the year 1882. About that time
he began to give lectures and addresses, and wrote them in great
numbers during the latter part of his life. A number of them were
collected and published in two volumes called "Hopes and Fears for
Art" and "Signs of Change," and many others have been published
separately. He thus gradually accustomed himself to prose composition.
For several years he was too busy with other things, which he thought